We all deserve to feel loved and appreciated.
And yet, 43% of Americans age 60 and older report feeling lonely. This loneliness can increase the risk of dementia, heart disease, stroke, and premature fatality.
How can we tackle the life-threatening problem of loneliness?
We can write them letters!
Love for Our Elders
We’re never too young or too old to learn from and love someone older than ourselves.
The non-profit Love for Our Elders was founded by an incredible young man named Jacob Cramer in honor of his grandfather.
As a young child, Jacob spent a lot of time with his grandparents and had a special bond with his grandfather.
Devastated when his grandfather passed, he started to volunteer at his local senior living community as the “bingo boy.” This led him to develop relationships with the residents with some of them becoming his best friends.
While they cared for Jacob, he learned that the world didn’t often care about them. So he started writing letters to his friends and grew it into a movement that pants 70 countries and 50,000 volunteers to fight loneliness with love.
Make Someone Smile
Even if you don’t have the time to volunteer on a regular basis, you can help someone smile by writing a letter of love through Love for Our Elders.
On their website, you can get a selection of people who could use letters, complete with where to mail them.
They make it super easy for you to write your letter as well with FAQs that cover what to include in your letter (and what to avoid), and how you can nominate someone that you might know.
Check back every month for a new set of people you can write to, get to know a bit about them, and you can help make someone smile.
I absolutely love this movement from an incredible young man!
